It was weakness calling her to that path, but not the same wavering of her will that had drawn her to Mark. It had not been cowardice that sent her into his arms. That weakness had been good and beautiful and optimistic, a spiritual yearning for a taste of love that transcends worldly concerns.

The temptation to now flee both that love and the duty that thwarted it was in no way good or optimistic. The lure to run away from the battle inside her was as great as that to escape the real clash of arms about to occur.

Upon waking she saw that most of the day had passed, but she had still known little true rest. Nor had her mind reconciled the two halves of her heart.

A group of women and children and old men milled outside the cottage. Nesta peeked out the door, and saw the gifts of food that they had brought. She smelled roasting fowl, and guessed that they intended to honor her with such a feast as their poverty permitted.

She called for the owner of the cottage. Ifan entered, hunched with age and deference.

“The able-bodied men have all left?” she asked.

“They could hardly stay here with such great events occurring all but in their own fields.”

She thought of the fields, and how some would lie fallow next year even if her father’s plan succeeded. Men would die, on both sides. The villagers knew that, but no man had held back.

Why, then, had she? Not because of Mark. It was deeper than that. She thought of her last design, and how making it had distressed her. Betraying Mark had weighed on her, but that was not all that caused her hand to falter so often. Her message had been a call to arms, and a demand for a war that would cause untold suffering. It was one thing to sacrifice one’s own life, and another to ask hundreds to do so in your name.

“We’ve cooked a young chicken,” Ifan said. “Me and some others tried to hunt some meat, but the region has seen its game taken by others, so there is little to be found, and what is left is faster than us.”

The others would be both Marcus’s and Carwyn’s men. Living off the land, they would have further impoverished the inhabitants. It was the way with armies, and the normal result of war, but Nesta could not help feeling guilty for it. The goal was to free the Welsh, not make them suffer.

She forced herself to remember that all great causes had their costs. That innocents would pay as well as soldiers saddened her, however.

She reminded herself that this was not about sorrow or happiness. It was bigger than her spiritual comfort, and these people, and not limited to this time and place.